They're calling it England's Amityville.

(SPOILERS) There’s a view that James Wan’s horror
movies fall into the category of intelligent genre fare. And, I guess, they do,
to the extent that they eschew gore and put the emphasis on character and
atmosphere. But that doesn’t mean they’re any less beholden to standard shock
tactics than their less esteemed brethren, or that the quality of the scripting
is especially remarkable. The original The
Conjuring was a decent-enough picture, making the most of its period
setting and reputable lead thespians while flourishing its “based on a true
story” badge with a pride that masked what should have had a “very, very
loosely” preceding it. The Conjuring 2
is looser still in its authenticity, while possibly being even more enamoured
of its ‘70s (England) trappings. It’s also the point where Wan’s signature
moves have become entirely repetitive, even – at two and a quarter hours –
exhaustingly so.

In the first scene – Amityville 1976 – our God-fearing
ghost/demon/spirit busters Ed and Lorraine Warren are engaged in an attempt to
contact the presence in the famous house, and Lorraine encounters a freaky-ass Marilyn
Manson nun (are nuns destined to be the next clowns? Possibly best ask a
Catholic, but definitely if the mooted spin-off movie materialises). A freaky-ass
Marilyn Manson nun who will inform the rest of the proceedings, so rather like
the device of Annabelle in the original. That’s an informative set-up for how the
whole movie is going, as the sequence is chock full of whispers, ghostly
creaking noises, out-of-body experiences, suddenly darkening lights, demon
children, basements (naturally), sinister laughing and Dutch angles. Wan is
pulling out his entire bag of tricks, but it’s a bag of tricks leading the way,
not in service of a strong or original story.

There’s a reason William Peter Blatty had a
reputation as an intelligent (to do the adjective justice) contributor to the
genre, and that’s because his material was imbued with genuine thoughtfulness, with
philosophical and religious enquiry and a desire to take a viewer on a journey –
the journey the author is on. That may have meant that, without a base, crude
shock tactician like William Friedkin, his work fell more often than not on
deaf audiences (The Ninth Configuration,
The Exorcist III), but it also
emphasises how the genre very rarely manages to marry the two polar forces of scares
and meditation over what lies behind those scares.

Wan has little going for him here
smarts-wise, alas; he’s on a mission to redux everything in the original and
his Insidious pictures, and the believer
status of the Warrens has little real import (“Your visions are a gift from God” is about the extent of it). So
Lorraine is haunted by something truly dreadful (“Ned, this is as close to Hell as I ever want to get”), which just
happens to stylistically resemble the previous dread figures they have come
across (or Wan has, at any rate). And, wouldn’t you know it, somehow the very
same Amityville demon has been manipulating the spirit in the Enfield Haunting
case. Small otherworld, innit?

Every tactic has become familiar to the
point of banality here, be they sound attacks in the corners of rooms, a whole
scene in a flooded basement that appears to be flooded just because (in a house
that is truly TARDIS-like compared to its modest exterior), scary spirit
Wilkins, who moves oddly but isn’t really especially unnerving, or the familiarly-possessed
daughter of the house. The latter’s vocal antics are far less troubling than
Frances O’Connor’s outrageous Dick van Dyke accent as mum Peggy Hodgson (the
final photos of the actual protagonists in the case are an amusing reminder of
how glammed up these productions are).

I go on a lot about unnecessary lengths of
movies these days, but really, The Conjuring
2 has no business not topping out at 100 minutes tops. Which isn’t to say
it would be suddenly a whole lot better, but it might be a recognition that an over-extended
running time in a horror is no indication of respectability, or still further, depth.
There’s the occasional strong scene, admittedly; Ned’s first interview with
Wilkins, in which they all agree to turn away from Janet (Madison Wolfe) is
effective and engaging, as he probes the spirit’s reasoning for remaining; the
earlier sequence of a TV interview with the Warrens is almost self-reflexive in
raising the claims of hoaxes in respect of their cases, as it also applies tangentially
to Wan’s disdain for sticking to the purported facts behind his story.

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are, as
before, a quietly compelling couple (when Vera isn’t called upon to scream, at
least). Which is good, as there’s precious little substance for them to work
with. Most of the supporting cast, O’Connor’s accent aside, are decent, including
Franke Potente as the sceptical front in the field of paranormal investigation,
although Simon McBurney may look the part but is distractingly broad as Maurice
Grosse.

This is another of those summer releases set
at Christmas, but even watching it seasonally fails to lend it much in the way
of extra buzz. The Hark the Herald Angels
Sing motif is about as far as it goes, although kudos to the director for
including excerpts from The Goodies’ The End of the World Show, which the
outrageous spirit absolutely refuses to let Janet sit down and watch all the
way through, indulging in rampant channel hopping. There’s bound to be a The Conjuring 3, as this did as well as
the first movie, but someone seriously needs to service the Warrens with a good
screenplay; the four credited writers here (including Wan) resolutely fail in
that regard.

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